


Meeting Peter

by Dorkangel



Series: Just Call Me Dadneto [1]
Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Agebending, Alternate Universe - Foster Family, Emotionally Constipated Erik, Future Cherik, I'm Bad At Titles, Long Shot, M/M, Peter is a Little Shit, Prompt Fill, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 07:39:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1890534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorkangel/pseuds/Dorkangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From X-Men First Kink prompt meme<br/>A foster family AU where Charles fosters Peter, Hank and an agebent Raven, and lives with Logan (just friends). Erik finds out he's a father, and goes to find Peter...<br/>I may have gone off on one from the prompt. Sorry!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meeting Peter

**Author's Note:**

> Raven is a six year old because I'm the author and I'll do what I want ;)  
> Oh yeah and it's still the seventies.

So this was the place. It simply resembled a normal house, if slightly large to accommodate a large family.  
This was the home of the man who had fostered his son.  
Erik sighed through his nose and leant back against the driver's seat, his hands resting comfortably on the steering wheel. He had only found out that he was a father a couple of days ago, when an agency had finally - after fifteen years, for god's sake - managed to track him down, and inform him in no uncertain terms that he was the birth father of one teenage Pietro Maximoff, living with a foster family not too far from him.

Pietro - or Peter, as he preferred to be called - had met Charles Xavier when he was eight. The young man had already been fostering a little boy called Hank, along with a whole myriad of other children who came and went. But Peter didn't have any family, and no one wanted to adopt him, apparently, so seven years later he was still living with Charles.  
And that was ok. Seriously, who else could deal with a kleptomaniac, super-speedy, freakishly dressed teenager? And so long as you didn't mind him getting inside your head, Charles would always respect your point of view. Actually Hank (two years Peter's senior) was still there too, having the odd habit of turning into a fluffy blue teddy when he was annoyed, in addition to a very small girl named Raven, who had been abandoned for being a shape-shifter, and occasionally a social worker called Logan who was a) totally inappropriate around children, and b) Charles's best friend.

At the moment Erik was waiting hesitantly outside in his car, Charles was being climbed on by Raven. He HAD been attempting to make dinner, but all chances of that succeeding had gone down the drain when Raven noticed that he was making fish and chips. "Eww!" he heard behind him, and spun around to meet the tiny (blonde today) form. "British food!"  
He'd laughed at the honest look of disgust on the six year old Raven's face, and scooped her up so she could look at it. "What's wrong with it? I am British, you know."  
"It's-" she broke off and made a frustrated shrieking noise, suddenly changing into her flexible blue form and clambering all over his shoulders.  
Charles was laughing and trying not to fall over and attempting to dislodge her when the doorbell rang.

Erik had decided to not overthink it (again) and just get out of the car and ring the door and just find out whether his son was there or not and what manner of delinquent was he and could he talk to him and then see how things went from there. From right in front of the door, he could hear the sounds of an argument about an electron microscope and a beer can and something about claws, some sort of action movie on the TV, and high pitched giggling and lower laughter and crashes. A very noisy house then. With children. And stickiness and sweetness. And feel good mottos. And possibly handprints.  
Erik steeled himself and pressed the button.

"Logan," called Charles, attempting to remove Raven's hands from his hair and her feet from his neck. "Could you get that?"  
Logan, who was trying to watch the movie with Peter, while having a slight disagreement with Hank over Hank's science project - apparently an electron microscope is not a good place to try and balance a full can of beer, especially if it has slight punctures in from adamantium claws - growled slightly. "Nope. Busy."  
Charles rolled his eyes, and resigned himself to the fact that whoever was going to talk to him was going to have to deal with Raven too. "Right. Come along then, little Mystique."  
She giggled again, attempting to initiate a pony ride from where she'd somehow managed to perch on top of his head.

Somehow, Erik managed to control his reaction at the sight of a fairly young man with scraggly, longish brown hair and a red/brown goatee answering the door with a small, blue and red child wrapped around his face.  
The little girl noticed him and cocked her head curiously to one side, changing positions so she was swinging upside down from his neck. She weighed barely anything, clearly, as the man didn't even notice, just gave Erik a curious look and attempted to talk past her feet.  
"Can I help you?"  
"I, uh, think so."o  
At the sound of his gravelly voice, Raven went still for a moment and jumped down off Charles, going to hide oddly shyly behind his back. Charles smiled apologetically, rubbing his neck, because there was nothing he was going to say to Raven about not playing. By the look of it, she hadn't had much of a childhood before she met him, always having to run and steal.  
Erik hesitated, then continued. "Is Pietro Maximoff here?"  
Charles breathed out sharply through his nose and slumped slightly. "What's he done this time?"  
Erik frowned and opened his mouth, but the man cut him off with a wave of his hand. "Never mind, I don't even want to know. Peter! The cops are- wait, are you a policeman?"  
Erik shook his head and Charles's eyebrows shot up. "Really? That's a development, certainly. Uh, come in, if you want."  
Erik did, trying not to look too intimidating. Or intimidated. Luckily, the house did not have handprints (apart from on the ceiling, but he didn't notice those), and it didn't smell like children, which was a plus. And it wasn't sticky, which was even better.  
Charles gently pushed Raven into the living room, where a disturbingly dressed young woman was shooting what was presumably gangsters on the screen, and led Erik into the kitchen, attempting to wipe flour off the tabletop where he'd absentmindedly spilled it.  
"So, Mr...?"  
"Lehnsherr, Erik Lehnsherr."  
"Mr. Lensherr, what is your interest in Peter?"  
Erik ran his fingers through his short cropped hair, trying to think. "I... It's complicated-"  
Best to get it over with, he thought.  
"He's my- I'm his dad."  
Charles froze in shock, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. "Wow. Really? Wow."  
Erik felt unreasonably nervous in front of this slightly scruffy looking, odd little man. "What?"  
"It's just..." Charles went red. "Well, you seem a bit young to be..."  
They both laughed hesitantly, relieved and still shocked.  
"If you don't mind me asking," said Charles slowly, peering at Erik. "Why haven't you contacted him before? I'm not trying to be rude."  
"I only found out two days ago. I didn't even know I was a father, and I still don't know anything about him. Just a name, an age and this address."  
"Oh. Well, my name is Charles Xavier. I'm the foster dad, obviously. I suppose you want to see Peter?"  
"Um, yes." He was, honestly, still a bit shell shocked at the thought of even being a dad. "But is there anything you can tell me about him..." Erik went a bit red as he realised what he'd said, and how embarrassing it probably sounded. Charles just nodded thoughtfully though.  
"Well, Peter doesn't like being called Pietro, for a start. He's got silver hair and he likes Pink Floyd and he's a kleptomaniac-"  
"Wait, what?"  
"Kleptomaniac. He nicks stuff; all kinds of stuff. That would be why I thought you were the police."  
"Oh."  
Charles sat down at the kitchen table and leant forward, his elbows on his knees and his fingers steepled thoughtfully against his nose. Erik had to stop himself physically from thinking about the man's attractiveness. This was about his son.  
"Mr. Lensherr, is it alright if I ask a personal question?"  
Erik nodded straightly and Charles asked. "Are you a mutant?"  
"Yes." he answered immediately, frankly.  
"Oh good," breathed Charles, leaning back. "Actually, all of us here are mutants. That little girl you saw me with, Raven, I suspect was probably forced to run away by antimutant prejudice. Peter can move very, very fast. He's been mistaken for a teleporter before: that's how fast he can move. Thing is, he can get in and out of, uh, secure places, pretty easily, which would explain the..."  
"Kleptomania."  
"Exactly. So, do you reckon you're ready to meet him? You do want to meet him, don't you?"  
"Yes!" Erik was surprised by just how enthusiastic his own answer was, but blinked and tried to hide it. Hesitant though he may be about having a son, he definitely wanted to see him. Charles looked like he was about ready to lead Erik into the living room and that could be that; but suddenly he hesitated, unsure. "I'm sorry," he said. "But, actually, I think it's probably best if I check your mind first. You know I mentioned that everyone here is a mutant? I'm a telepath."  
Erik looked confused, so Charles got flustered and continued talking a little more rapidly. "I-I mean, I'm sure you're a nice guy and everything, but I don't know you. I don't know if you really are Peter's dad or just some psycho, so I probably need to check your mind to make sure. If you don't mind."  
Erik blinked but made no move to protest. "Alright. Just so long as you only look for Peter-"  
"I wouldn't just invade any part of the mind randomly!" said a still flustered Charles. Erik didn't answer, waiting for the telepath to get inside his head and get it over with. Ciharles took one deep, long breath (more for nerves than anything) and raised two fingers to his temple, his head turning sharply so he was focused on Erik alone. 

Erik Lehnsherr's mind was both ruled with a iron first and completely disorganised. Peter, luckily, was right at the forefront of his thoughts, along with something suspicious nagging along about Charles being cute. The telepath decided to accept that as a compliment and pretend he hadn't seen it, and went deeper about Peter. The man was telling the truth, that was for sure, and was actually terrified of coming here - why was that? 'Failed as a parent', whispered Erik's mind. 'Wasn't there for him, should have been there. What if he's awful? What if he doesn't like me? What if he's angry? What if-'  
'Quite enough of that,' said Charles calmly over the crowding thoughts, and was about to withdraw when he noticed another little nagging thing, only this one led to a whole other group of memories, darker ones, and...  
'Didn't have a parent from eleven onwards,' supplied Erik's mind involuntarily. 'Not fun at all. I hope Peter-Pietro-Peter-Pietro's ok.'  
Curious, Charles accidentally pressed closer, brushed against a memory and...  
Gasped slightly, pulling away from the other mind. He had relived other people's unpleasant memories before, and memories of the Holocaust were nothing he wished to experience, or force Erik to experience again.  
"R-right," said Charles, slightly shaken but trying for a smile. "You're not a psycho, apparently. Probably. Right."  
"Are you ok?"  
"I'm fine. Let's go talk to Peter."  
Erik nodded apprehensively and they left.

While Erik and Charles had been talking, Peter had got bored and zipped off to play video games in the basement. Usually, what with looking after two teenagers and a little kid, Charles wouldn't be able to afford video games, but that was ok. Peter just stole them; like he always said, it's not illegal if you don't get caught.  
Somewhere in the back of his mind he was wondering why Charles had shouted for him and then not called him up on it, but it probably didn't matter. His hands, and a large proportion of his brain, was occupied playing Pong at lightning speed, which was always a good distraction. Charles said that Peter's thoughts were like his actions. Fast, erratic, and hard to catch hold of.  
He wasn't too surprised to hear Logan stomping down the stairs, since Logan liked to play Pong and Space Invaders just as much as the next guy (not that he - or anyone - had ever beaten Peter), but that wasn't the reason he was coming down right now.  
"Peter, get upstairs. Charles has got someone who wants to talk to you."  
"Whatever it was, I didn't steal it." His words were also like his thoughts and actions (too fast), which made talking to him a little difficult.  
"That's not what he wants to talk about."  
Oh. That was surprising. "Really? What does he want to talk about?"  
"How the hell should I know?" growled Logan, exasperated. "Just get your ass up there and talk to him."  
"Why can't he come down here?"  
"I'm pretty sure Charles doesn't want him to see your, uh, appropriated items. Anyway, get up. Talk."  
Peter flicked the game off sharply, giving Logan a stare as he jogged at a vaguely normal speed up the stairs. "You're great with people, you know, I can really see why you became a social worker, man."  
"Shut up and slow down."  
"No chance."

Erik was staring a little bit. The boy who came up the stairs did, indeed, have silver hair, dyed a bluey colour in places, and he was wearing a black T-shirt and a silver leather jacket. He had goggles on his head and a pair of headphones around his neck, connected loosely to an exhausted looking Walkman on his belt.  
Peter, in turn, surveyed the man. It didn't take him very long, but he noted the stiff bearing and stony, although nervous, face and the short brown hair. Also the polo neck, which maybe wasn't the best fashion in the world but, hey, what did he know?  
"Hey, Professor X. Who's this?  
"Uh... Come into my study, Peter. This is Erik Lehnsherr."  
"Hi there, Erik Lehnsherr." said Peter, confused and mildly sarcastic, following Charles into the study. "Hello, Peter." The man's voice was rough, hoarse. As if the words were a little painful.  
Charles went to his comfortable chair and leaned back, frowning, and steepled his fingers again.  
"I think I'm going to go with Erik's theory and just get this first bit over quickly."  
He exchanged a look with the older man, who nodded slightly, biting his lip. "It's probably best if you say it, actually."  
"Alright. Peter, Erik is... Erik is your dad. Your birth father."  
Peter, who had been tapping his fingers, shaking his right foot and just generally having trouble keeping still, froze.  
He didn't move a muscle. Not even his eyes. He didn't blink.  
Erik opened his mouth to speak and there was a silvery grey blur and a whoosh of wind as Peter ran past them at full speed.  
Erik stood up quickly, but Charles's hand was already at his temple, chasing Peter's mind.  
"Where is he?" he asked, half desperately. He didn't know why.  
"Running up and down the street. Well, pacing, by his standards. I could freeze him, but somehow I don't think he'd appreciate that." Charles's tone was apologetic, but he didn't make any moves to go after the teenager. Peter would come back when he wanted, they both knew that.  
Erik tried to hide the knot in his throat, with little success. Charles was, after all, a telepath.  
"I-I should go-"  
The younger man seemed as though he was going to try and make Erik stay, but then the fire alarm went off and Charles swore under his breath, half climbing over the desk.  
"That's our dinner, sorry, I forgot about it. Uh, look, if you give me your phone number, I'll call you once Peter's got his thoughts organised."  
Erik nodded, unable to speak, and went out of the room and towards the exit as quickly as he could. As he reached the door, however, he was intercepted by the little blue girl, Raven. She blinked innocently up at him. "Hello."  
His eyebrows went up and he nodded, still not trusting his voice. He wasn't really sure what he was feeling... Oh god, he was FEELING.  
"Did you speak to Peter?" Her body language was just screaming innocent, friendly. Her hands were locked behind her back, and she was swaying from side to side in time to her sing-song tone of voice.  
"No," he admitted. "I didn't."  
"Oh." She frowned. "That's unlucky. Hank's grumpy and Charles says Logan's bad at people, but Peter's NICE."  
Without really knowing why, he smiled at her and made to leave. "Bye bye." she said happily, and moved back into the living room, where a fully blue Hank was sitting miserably on the floor, waiting for Logan to stop laughing and help him turn back normal.

Erik didn't really know what to do. He went home, ate a cookie, and considered calling someone. But who'd bother listening to him?  
Friends, he thought. Who are my friends?  
For a moment his brain didn't supply any answers and he mentally kicked himself.  
Aha. Emma Frost, that should help. She'd been working for Shaw before Erik caught up with him... and on that note, it was probably best to deny that Shaw ever existed in regards to his son.  
She picked up on the third ring - very like her to have a phone handy at all times - with a neat and clipped: "Emma Frost, can I help you?"  
"Emma, it's me. Erik."  
"Oh, hello Erik. Long time no see."  
"Yeah. Listen, I need to talk to you. It's important."  
"So talk, honey. I'm not doing anything right now."  
"I have shocking news. World shattering."  
"What is it? Erik, are you ok?"  
He sighed deeply. "I'm a dad."

On Charles's end, Peter managed to turn up for dinner. This was actually very surprising, as Peter could swipe whatever food he wanted and rarely stuck around to suffer Charles and Logan's combined culinary efforts. The fish and chips had been burnt beyond recognition, so they had (much to the delight of everyone who wasn't Charles) ordered pizza instead. Peter had arrived just as he was laying out the slices, suddenly sitting in his slightly rattled seat and calmly stealing the first slice. Charles doubted very much that he'd gotten over... Erik... as a brief look into his head confirmed, but he acted normal. As normal as Peter would ever be anyway, which was close enough in this house.  
As soon as they'd finished eating , however, Charles slowly climbed the stairs to his (locked) study, and found an anxious Peter sitting on his desk, swinging his legs so fast that they were actually causing smoke to rise.  
As soon as his foster dad came in, Peter's head snapped up and he fixed him with a confused, nervous gaze. "Who the hell was that guy?"  
"That was-"  
"Yeah, yeah, I heard, he's my... But I mean, who is he?"  
"Well, his name is Erik Lehnsherr. He said that he only found out about having a son two days ago, and he was just given a name, an age and this address."  
Peter looked at him incredulously. "That's it? That's seriously all you know?"  
"That's all he told me. I did, however, get a look in his mind. It's probably private but... He works pretty high up in a shipping company, but he's also part of a mutant rights type division. He's currently working mainly for mutants who've been fighting in Vietnam, but he's been involved in more, um, extreme action, shall we say, in the past. He's German, originally, of Jewish descent. A survivor of the Holocaust during the Second World War, so don't bring that up. He has a tattoo from his time at Auschwitz on his right arm. He's currently living in a small flat, more than a little introverted, and he's not really sure what he's doing with his life."  
Peter nodded, not complaining about how slowly Charles had been talking for once. "So that's my old man, huh?" He didn't ask about his mom. He knew about her, and had no desire to know more. She had, apparently, been unable to keep up with a child with a mutation like Peter's.  
"He is also a mutant." added Charles, almost as an afterthought. Peter almost wished that everyone saw mutations as he did: as part of a person's personality, not their entire character. "What can he do? Is he fast like me?"  
"No, I'm afraid not. The type of mutant a person is, is apparently, totally uncorrelated with familial relationships."  
Interrupting Charles before he could get too scientific (there was a reason they called him the professor), Peter waved his arms around and said "Yeah, yeah, but what can he do?"  
"He's- oh god, I'm not sure what you'd call it, probably metallokinetic."  
"What?"  
"He can control metal."  
Peter nodded. "Cool. I haven't got any siblings, right?"  
"Not that he knows of, although if you're any track record..."  
"Never mind. Is he coming back?"  
"I said I'd call him."  
"Awesome. Do Hank and Logan and Raven know?"  
"I haven't told them."  
Peter nodded. "Well, I'm going to. Not sure about Logan, but they're family, right? They deserve to know."  
Charles grinned. He couldn't help it. "Go tell them then."  
Peter gave a grin back - although on him it looked less sincere and more insane - and disappeared.

"What?!" Emma's voice had become very, very high pitched on the other side of the phone, and Erik winced. "You're not even joking!"  
"No, I am most certainly not."  
Some element of glee crept into her voice. "And you called me to ask about it because you have no friends."  
He caught himself wandering if telepathy worked via phone lines. "No..."  
"Oh shut up sweetie, that's exactly what happened. So, you went to see him, did you?"  
"I tried to." Erik sighed. "He ran off."  
"Hmm. Actually, one question darling, what do you want ME to do about it?"  
"I don't know! I just thought... Well, you're a girl-"  
She gasped, scandalised. "Thanks!" came her sarcastic reply. "Seriously though, I know about as much about children as you do. You're on your own, honey." He heard her clap her hands delightedly over the phone and winced again, moving the receiver a little further away from his ear. "Wait 'til I tell Azazel about this!"  
She hung up and Erik groaned and slammed his head into the back of his chair.

"What?!" yelled Logan and Hank simultaneously, and Raven glanced around and added her own little 'What!' to the mix a second later, although she appeared to be copying the others more than actually surprised.  
Peter could feel their eyes resting on him and started zipping quickly to various places in the room, settling on the dresser behind the couch where they were sitting before he replied. "Yeah, weird, isn't it?"  
To them it had only been a second and they twisted around to face him, the older two still looking shocked.  
"I don't want to meet my parents again." said Raven quietly, and Hank agreed with her in his dorky, Hank-ish manner. "Me neither, kiddo."  
Logan shrugged and shoved a cigar into the side of his mouth. "My parents have been dead for two hundred years."  
"You're so cheerful." added Hank dryly, and Raven grabbed his hand. "C'mon Teddy," she said distractedly. She never called him Beast. Just Teddy. "Let's go colour. Let's go colour a picture of Peter's daddy."  
"Why?"  
"So Peter'll have something to give his daddy."  
Hank allowed himself to be led off, getting vaguely sympathetic looks from Peter and Logan. "Why can't Peter do it?"  
"He's too old for colouring."  
"And I'm not?!"  
As their voices faded, Logan moved to sit in front of Peter, giving him the 'I'm serious, try to stay still' look.  
"So, you just met this guy."  
"Yep."  
"And he's your dad."  
"Yep."  
Logan 'Harrumph'ed. "Right."  
"Charles did check his mind, man, he's clean. Well, figuratively."  
"Yeah, well. I'll trust him once I figure him out myself."

Erik received the phone call from Charles early the next morning.  
Unfortunately, he had been asleep, and therefore quite irritable.  
"What?" he growled.  
"Is this Erik?" came Charles's hesitant, English tones from the other end. "Uh, yes, sorry. I just woke up."  
"Ah. I just wanted to catch you before you went to work. It is a Monday, you know."  
"Right."  
"Well, Peter's fine with it, if not completely emotionally stable. Do you want to come round later?"  
"Sure, that sounds great."  
"Oh good. Well, see you." And then he hung up, leaving Erik blinking  
The next few hours, for Erik, were spent trying desperately to concentrate on his work without just calling Charles or leaving his office and just heading to his house.  
This carried on until his boss, Moira, noticed.  
"Alright, Erik," she said, sounding exhausted, coming to stand by his desk. "What's going on?"  
"I have no idea what you are talking about."  
"Erik! You're practically hyperactive, can't concentrate, have this constipated look on your face-"  
He turned his head to give her a raised eyebrow at that last remark and she looked faintly embarrassed. "I wasn't sure you were paying attention to me either. And you do anyway!"  
"It's personal."  
"It is?!" Quite frankly, Moira looked delighted. Erik never mentioned anything personal. "Do tell."  
He sighed, putting his head in his hands. "Why is everyone suddenly interested in my private life?"  
She snorted. "Yes, Erik, because you've told more than one other person. Come on. Spill the beans."  
"I... It turns out I have a son."  
She gasped slightly, imagining Erik with a cute little baby. "Awwh! How old is he?"  
"Fifteen." Erik grunted, knowing exactly where Moira's brain was going. Her face fell slightly, and then brightened again. "Still, that must be kind of good news, right?"  
"He's in foster care. I met him for about two seconds yesterday before he ran off, but I'm meeting him again today."  
"Awesome!" she said in her encouraging voice, slapping him on the back. He frowned grumpily, which was his way of showing affection.  
"What's his name?"  
"Peter- well, Pietro, but he calls himself Peter."  
"That's nice, but that's not it." She narrowed her eyes, going for an educated guess based on what she knew of Erik. "Is the foster parent cute or something?"  
Erik spluttered and wondered if literally everyone he knew was a telepath. "No! Well, maybe a little, but that's got practically nothing to do with anything!"  
"You keep telling yourself that." laughed Moira, leaving Erik to his usual infuriated glares. She had a theory that he worked best when he was angry. Or at least, she hoped so, since he was angry pretty much all of the time.  
And she wasn't too surprised when he left work early and drove off to see Peter and Charles.

It was around quarter to four, so the schools had all just finished. Not that Raven went to school, but other kids did, and that was what mattered. She had been going to talk to Kurt, another blue mutant boy down the street, a teleporter, but on the way had been cut off by a couple of boys two or three years older than her (making them around eight or nine). She hadn't had time to change before they noticed her.  
"Yuck!" screamed one of the littlest. "A freaky little blue mutant!"  
"Go away." she muttered weakly, but mostly the didn't even hear her.

Erik, who was driving past to get to Charles's house, heard crying through a slightly opened car window and frowned, looking out to where he could see a group of little kids surrounding someone else. Not pleasant, but none of his business until he noticed that tell tale flash of blue and red.  
He stopped the car and got out.  
"Hey!"  
They noticed an adult coming and parted quickly, with that worried look of guilt only children can wear when they are caught doing something bad. "What the hell are you doing?!" he yelled, now absolutely sure that it was the tiny mutant girl from yesterday that they were picking on.  
Erik reached down and pulled a still sobbing Raven into his arms from where she was curled up on the ground. Vaguely recognising him as a grown up she knew, she wrapped her arms around him in return and he stood up, the other children taking that as their cue to leave, sharpish. Erik ignored them.  
"Hey, you're alright, aren't you? They're gone."  
She hiccuped slightly, pressing her face into his chest, and he walked slowly back to his car, putting her down in the front seat.  
"It's Raven, isn't it?"  
"Uh huh." she said quietly, kind of shy.  
"Do you remember who I am?"  
"You're Erik," she said. "You're Peter's daddy."  
"That's right," he said, being as friendly as he possibly could. "I'm going to your house now, ok?"  
"Ok."  
"Right." He started the car, and continued talking. "What was that about?"  
She sniffled. "Blue..."  
"That's ridiculous!" She startled slightly at his harsh words. "Sorry. Just..."  
"I can be not blue." she said quickly. "See?"  
She changed suddenly, becoming her favourite human form; the blonde girl, the same age as her, with almost the same face.  
Erik was too surprised to say anything for a moment. Raven decided to speak again before he could get a word in. "I can be you too."  
She changed again, becoming a perfect version of Erik, clumsily copying his movements. She was, after all, only six.  
"I can be anyone."  
"You're a shapeshifter." said Erik, smiling, impressed. "That's amazing."  
"I-It is?"  
"Of course it is."  
She flickered back to her blue form, somehow managing to blush. "Professor X. said so too."  
"'Professor X.'? Is that Charles?"  
"Uh huh. It's Logan's idea, but I like it."  
"Logan's the hairy guy, right?"  
"Yep. He's Wolverine, I'm Mystique, Hank's Beast and Peter's Quicksilver. 'Cos he's quick and silver."  
Erik laughed. "Is that so?"  
"'Course it is!"  
They pulled up outside the house. "Out you get then, Mystique."  
She did, skipping up to the door and opening it. "Hello? Guys, Peter's daddy's here."  
Logan came out of the kitchen, a cigar in one hand and a magazine called 'GUNS, MOTORBIKES AND MORE GUNS' in the other.  
"Raven? What the-" He broke off at the sight of the little cut above her eye and the messy state of her hair, and the way she just seemed generally a bit off kilter.  
He growled at Erik, putting the magazine down and extending his claws partway.  
"What. The. Hell."  
"Logan!" barked the tiny Raven. "Some really nasty kids were bothering me and Erik stopped them and gave me a lift."  
Logan still looked unconvinced. "That what happened, bub?"  
Erik nodded. "They were surrounding her."  
"Huh."  
Peter appeared behind them, at the door. He had been sitting on the roof.  
"Hi."  
The word wasn't awkward as much as it was tentative, hesitant. Erik spun around and gave a slightly nervous smile in return. "Hello, Peter."  
Logan looked slowly at both of them, grunted, and wandered off. Erik watched him, slightly confused.  
"Yeah..." said Peter. "Logan's more of a guard dog than a parent."  
He zipped forward so he was facing Erik. "So, do you want to come down to my room? I live in the basement."  
"The basement?"  
"Yeah dude, like a mini-pad or something. It's easier, you know? 'Cos up here, if I get hyper, I tend to break things."  
Erik hesitated for a moment. "Oh."  
"Come on."  
Peter disappeared in a blur down the hall, and a door slammed open that was presumably to the basement. For some reason, Erik couldn't help smiling at his son's ability. It was amazing.  
He obediently followed Peter into the basement, only to find him already alterning between playing super-speed Pong and sitting in various sprawled positions across a battered couch.  
"So," he began, getting increasingly dizzy from trying to track Peter's movements. "Do you go to school or-"  
"Nope." His voice was coming from the other end of the room, where stolen TVs and boxes of Twinkies were stacked carelessly.  
"Professor Xavier homeschools us. Well, Hank homeschools himself. He graduated from Harvard at fourteen."  
Erik nodded. Made sense. The first part, at least.  
"And what is Professor Xavier a professor of?"  
"Genetics. He's a mutant expert."  
He frowned, unsure if he wanted a mutant expert near his son - never mind that he'd only just met the kid, he wasn't sure he wanted a scientist like that anywhere in the vicinity of young children. It didn't matter that Xavier was a mutant himself.  
So was Shaw.  
"Does he... Does he experiment-"  
Peter slowed down for a moment to turn and look sincerely at his father, shaking his head. "No. I know some people do, but Charles wouldn't."  
He turned back to warp speed Pong, still speaking. "Hank's measured my speed a couple of times, but that's just to see if my mutation's the same as his. He can go pretty quick when he wants to. I mean, not like me, but less slow than the rest of you."  
Peter turned around, sped to the other side of the room, blew his hair out of the face, and continued.  
"Charles said you can control metal."  
Erik's left eyebrow twitched up and he slowly raised his hand, making everything metal in the room rattle and threaten to lift into the air.  
Peter tried to suppress a grin. "That's cool." he breathed. "Cool, but weird. How the hell does that work?"  
Erik shrugged. "Some form of magnetic field, I believe."  
Peter nodded. "Awesome."  
He moved quickly to the couch, flopping down so he was actually facing Erik. Somehow he was almost done eating a Twinkie.  
"No offence, man, but why did you come to find me?"  
Erik froze; choking on his breath, not to mention his words. "I'm not- it's not that-"  
Peter was oddly still again, as he often was, it seemed, when he was serious.  
"I'm serious. Like, I'm not a cute little kid. I'm fifteen. I'm a weirdo mutant too."  
Erik sat down, burying his face in his hands. "Peter... You're not a weirdo, for a start-"  
"How can you say that?" There was a blur and Peter was lying upside down.  
"You barely know me."  
"Being a mutant doesn't make you a weirdo."  
"No, being me makes me a weirdo." Peter shrugged and flipped back to his previous position. "Just answer the question, dude."  
Erik breathed slowly. "My parents died when I was eleven."  
Peter sat straight upright, suddenly remembering what Charles had told him about Erik's past. Not what Erik had told Charles. The secrets. The things in his head. "I'm-"  
"No, just wait." said Erik, needing to finish. "My parents died when I was eleven, in Hitler's camps."  
Peter felt a horrible feeling of guilt rising in his stomach, but continued saying nothing for Erik's sake.  
"I didn't want any kid of mine to... to be alone."  
Peter winced, his mouth twitching as he tried to think of something to say. "I'm sorry."  
[Damn, that got dark real quickly]  
Erik didn't say anything. "Mr. Lehnsherr?"  
"No, that's okay. It was a long time ago. And my name is Erik."  
"Ok." Peter moved back to the Pong.  
"So, you got a girlfriend or something, Erik?"  
He could feel the man's blush behind him without even having to turn around.  
"No."  
"Awesome. Charles fancies you."  
"What?!" Erik's voice was spluttering, shocked.  
Peter just kind of shrugged. "He kinda projects his telepathy when he's feeling... emotional."  
He spun his chair around, partly, at least, to confirm that Erik's face had, indeed, gone a dark shade of crimson.  
"Don't worry about it though. Me and Logan were the only ones awake; it was like, midnight. Logan doesn't really sleep, and I usually take a nap when everyone else is in the middle of a sentence."  
Erik waved his finger threateningly, but then continued to say nothing, his mouth opening and closing like a fish's. Peter snorted and zipped over to Space Invaders on the other side of the room, having exhausted all the possibilities of the Pong machine.  
"So, you into guys or what?"  
Erik rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged apologetically. He guessed that was probably true. And Charles was very...  
Peter spun around to face him again. "Look, I can set you up if you want. Just to be frank."  
"What?!"  
"Awwh, c'mon! You guys already take like a million years to do anything, and you and the prof. are both so awkward- at a natural pace, it'd take forever!"  
"What would take forever?"  
"You and him getting together, duh."  
Erik sat down on Peter's couch, exhausted. The last two minutes had been an emotional roller coaster.  
"...aren't you a little young to be setting up your recently discovered dad with your foster dad?"  
"Young? You're just old."  
Erik's eyes narrowed. "That still doesn't explain why you want to play Cupid."  
Peter grinned. "You piss off Logan, saved Raven, probably gonna scare the hell out of Hank, and there is no way I'm going to miss an opportunity to get an even weirder combination of parents; my biological father dating my adoptive father. And come on, you clearly like him back!"  
Erik smiled grudgingly. Maybe having a son was going to be kind of fun.


End file.
